


bystander

by harklights



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harklights/pseuds/harklights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re here.” Someone says. “Again.”</p><p>Kenji turns around to see that a man had joined him in leaning against the wall. It’s a little too dark in the tiny room to be sure, but it looks like he’s wearing all black.</p><p><i>Pretentious,</i> he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bystander

“You’re here.” Someone says. “Again.”

Kenji turns around to see that a man had joined him in leaning against the wall. It’s a little too dark in the tiny room to be sure, but it looks like he’s wearing all black.

 _Pretentious,_  he thinks. He should have expected it the moment he turned into the building on a whim after seeing a sign on the street advertising a graduate thesis exhibition, open daily and free to the public. Kenji assumes that this black-garbed person created the work that Kenji is currently parked in front of. He hadn’t read the tiny plaque on the wall to see what the artist’s name was. Hadn’t bothered to catch the title of the short film currently playing either, for that matter.

 

“This is the only good spot. Everywhere else is too crowded,” he answers, knowing it’s a low blow by the way the other gives a stuttered blink. But it’s the truth. This exhibit clearly wasn’t as popular as some of the other ones laid out on the floor that had masses of people crowded around them. Where the bulk of the students’ works were out in the open, this one was crammed into a small darkened room barely big enough for ten people to comfortably fit inside. People passed through, fell into a polite silence while watching a few minutes of the grainy pictures flickering on the far wall, and then moved back out into the bright light where there was free food and people to mingle with.

Kenji admittedly has no idea what’s happening on the screen either. It’s all discombobulated scenes and no sound other than ambient music running on an endless loop. It’s totally inaccessible. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t want to get, because the thought of reaching an understanding with such abstract nonsense would likely end in a headache.

There are two other people quietly sitting on a tiny bench in front of him, an elderly couple probably there because they wanted to sit down and there were no other seats in the gallery space. He imagines them to be a student’s grandparents out to congratulate a grandchild on a year well done.

“In any case,” the man continues, not sounding very affronted by the earlier insult. Of course. “This is my thesis here. My name is Ennoshita Chikara. Are you interested in hearing more?”

 _No,_  Kenji wants to say, because he made the mistake of saying yes to a woman ten minutes ago, a woman who could not shut up about her printmaking process and threw around words and techniques that Kenji’s lowly science-orientated mind could not grasp. He had spent those ten excruciating minutes sipping down his free white wine, wide eyed, fake grin stretched to its absolute limit, hoping that the sheer volume of his discomfort would finally clue the lady in to how much he did not give a fuck about lofty student art. He’d only managed to slip away when a trio slid in to ask a question about how she managed to get the colors so vivid, diverting the brunt of the woman’s monologuing away from Kenji long enough for him to flee in the complete opposite direction.

He had wanted a break after that. Headed straight back to one of the tables laid out with fancy cubed cheeses and crackers to grab a second cup of wine, red this time, but found that he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet. He might not be that into art, but he didn’t mind walking around to take a break from his own hectic final semester.

Silence doesn’t seem to discourage this person.

“Have you heard of the bystander effect before?” Ennoshita asks.

Kenji shrugs and puts his mouth against the plastic cup he’s holding. The wine is cheap but it’s free, so it’s good enough. Bystander effect - it rings a bell from a prereq psych class he took years ago in undergrad. The guy either fails to recognize Kenji’s utter reluctance or chooses to ignore it and continues talking as if Kenji had just lent him his undivided attention.

“It’s a psychological phenomenon saying that, in some cases, individuals won’t come to the aid of a victim when there are other people around. The more bystanders there are, the less likely it is that the victim will get help. Like a state of apathy that overtakes each onlooker.”

“Uh huh,” Kenji mutters.

“Some say this happens because everyone might be in shock while seeing what’s happening to the victim. Maybe they don’t know what to do. Everyone is thinking ‘Someone else will help this person so I don’t have to do anything’ and in the end, because everyone is thinking the same thing, no one does a thing to help. A most obvious example is bullying.”

“Tragic,” Kenji sighs, staring hard at the projected film. It’s a bad, blurry shot of a mass of people hopping around with flashing lights and balloons everywhere. Someone’s painted, glowing face smears by. It makes his eyes ache.

“I took that one at a warehouse party in a Tokyo suburb with my phone,” Ennoshita says, and Kenji chances an incredulous look to the side when he notices that the distance between them has suddenly decreased. Ennoshita’s voice is quiet as if he’s in a library, just barely audible over the constant buzz and conversations taking place in the rest of the gallery. Probably trying to preserve the sanctity of the space or something else equally  _pretentious._

Kenji intentionally raises his voice louder than it needs to be. “People still go to those these days?”

Ennoshita smiles. He looked somber before, like he may have stayed up all day to put final touches on this project, but the smile lightens his features in a way that makes him think it might suit him best. Kenji takes a liberal gulp of bubbly and thinks, with heat:  _Pretentious._

Ennoshita doesn’t say anything else after that though, but in some cruel twist of fate, one minute later, Kenji is the first one to break the lull.

“How did you manage to get that one?”

“Dropped my GoPro camera off a friend’s balcony with a rig and a line,” Ennoshita explains, as quiet as before. Maybe he’s just soft spoken. They both watch the camera plummet closer and closer to the ground, wobbling slightly to give brief glimpses of the city laid out below, bathed in an orange glow. Must have been taken around sunset. Kenji is reluctantly impressed by the spectacle. “It’s a tall apartment complex. Scared me half to death thinking I might break it, but the realness of the risk makes it work. Watching this part still makes me breathless.”

“Like ‘wow, I’d love to go jump off that balcony too’ breathless?”

“Exactly.”

Kenji scrunches up his nose because, god, was this one of  _those_  kind of expositions? A personal piece expanding on a personal inner struggle that he can’t badmouth because it would make him a complete asshole? He feels grossly awkward already, eyeing the exit as obviously as possible.

“I’m interested in how people can leave the world and the world will keep on spinning with or without them. And that doesn’t have to mean death or suicide. It can be that feeling of ‘It would be nice to not exist for a little while. Just for one night.’ It can be that bar or party you visit to unwind after a stressful week of working. It can mean escapism through reading a piece of fiction or going out to the movies or having sex.” Kenji rolls his eyes at that, but it seems to go unnoticed. “Stopping something you enjoy because you think that you’re not good enough at doing it, so why keep trying? Or that creeping worry you get when you’re with a group of friends and they’re all having fun and you think: ‘They don’t really need me here.’”

 _Jesus, was he for real?_  Kenji should have grabbed a plate full of celery sticks so he could crunch on them and drown everything out. He didn’t think he’d need to climb to that level of rudeness but  _holy crap._

Ennoshita must be being genuine though, because he ends the spiel with a succinct: “I like how people try to run away from themselves.”

And now Kenji really can’t hold it in anymore, asshole impressions be damned. He knows he’s supposed to hum and nod and tell him he’s done a good job on his thesis even if he doesn’t like it at all, but this is too much, and if Kenji is going to get stuck listening to another monologue he’s not going to take it without a bite.

He tears his eyes away from the film, smiles bright and boyish, and says, “That is such bullshit.”

The way Ennoshita’s mouth falls open is priceless, like he can’t reconcile the disparity between Kenji’s expression and his tone. He closes it after a satisfying moment. “Pardon?”

“The whole idea of ‘we’re all just specks of dust floating around in the universe and we mean nothing in the grand scheme of things’. What sixteen year old’s blog did you rip that concept off of? It’s falling back on depressing thoughts like that that brings people down and ruins their potential. No one would get anything done if we all thought like that.” Kenji is definitely not a shiny optimist, but he’s been trying to work on his pragmatism for years. Nothing like chanting affirmations at himself before a mirror every day, but he has to admit that positive thinking is a thing that helps and works every now and then.

The way Ennoshita is looking at him is a little unsettling, but the other recovers quickly. “…You’re telling me that you’ve never wanted to disappear before?”

“Nope,” Kenji smoothly responds.

“Never had an embarrassing moment in your life and wished that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow you.”

“Sounds like the stuff of shoujo manga to me.”

“You’re lying,” Ennoshita firmly retorts, forging on before Kenji can get out anything more than an affronted noise. “But that’s okay. You don’t have to agree with anything that I say, and maybe the bad things do fascinate me more than they should.”

“But I don’t think it’s all bad, being small. I don’t automatically equate it to being insignificant. Being that speck of dust can lift you up. It can make you feel alive too, feeling like you’re just a tiny part in a big group of everything. Winning a game with all of your teammates around and feeling like you would be  _nothing_  without them there with you.” Kenji stares, because that one actually hits poignant and he wonders where it came from. Ennoshita angles his head to one side. His eyes are slightly dilated from the dark. He looks like he loves this. He looks like he just might be in his element, talking high concepts that no one else cares to watch with a complete stranger, like he’s trying to peel back the curtains to an obscure play he knows by heart and wants to show to the world.

The feeling Kenji has been keeping at bay for the past ten minutes finally bursts free, sparking up his blood to the tune of _he’s ridiculously attractive._

“Or,” Ennoshita continues, reaching up to take Kenji’s drink. Their fingers brush and Kenji does  _not_  jolt at the contact, doesn’t gawk when Ennoshita tips what little wine is left into his mouth while maintaining eye contact the whole way through. He hands the cup back. Kenji’s fingers clamp down around the plastic on instinct and he sends a silent prayer of thanks to his fine motor skills for working at all. “Or when something very amazing, very dangerous, or very brazen happens in an ordinary public place.” His lips are stained red when he wets them. “And absolutely no one cares.”

_Oh, fuck._

“And it almost sounds like…” Ennoshita pauses when a group of young people cuts through the room. One of them waves, Ennoshita pleasantly returns it, and Kenji unintentionally gawks at her when he feels Ennoshita’s arm wrap around him with no hesitation at all. Not a single person bats an eyelash, directing the conversation only at Ennoshita while Kenji stands and suffers the warmth seeping through his shirt, feeling like an accessory.

The group leaves after saying their farewells, and Ennoshita turns to look at him as if they’d never been interrupted.

“It almost sounds like a case of the bystander effect, doesn’t it?”

He doesn’t know how he summons any words at all, too aware of the way they’re still cradled together, Ennoshita’s hand splayed over the curve of his hip like it belongs there. His heart is beating a tempo faster than it had been mere minutes before.

He swallows his pulse down, chants the most obscene line of curses he can think of in his mind, and manages to cobble together one indignant retort. “You know you just gave me the role of the victim just now, right?”

If Kenji thought the first smile was bad, this one is totally unfair. Ennoshita grins with teeth and a laugh pushes free from his mouth that’s all breath. He removes his arm but stays close, looking Kenji straight in the eyes.

“Are you interested in hearing more?”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! snagged this drabble off tumblr after deciding that i won't continue it. i like to think that futakuchi subjects himself to way more baffling art mumbo jumbo in the future.


End file.
